Take a look inside the Sobela Ocean Aquarium, KC Zoo’s new ‘jewel’ opening soon

After more than 10 years in the planning, the new $77 million, Sobela Ocean Aquarium is set to open on Friday, Sept. 1, at Kansas City Zoo & Aquarium.

The aquarium, located in a new four-story building across from Helzberg Penguin Plaza, will have more than 8,000 animals. There will be 200 species including moray eels, four sand tiger sharks, a brown shark, a giant Pacific octopus and a sea turtle. The animals in the exhibits represent life across six ocean zones and 34 habitats that tell the story of how the ocean currents connect animals across the world.

“My background comes from an aquatic realm, so even though I’m a zoo director who loves all the animals in here, my heart goes back to the aquatic,” said Sean Putney, executive director and CEO of the Kansas City Zoo, which recently announced a name change to the Kansas City Zoo & Aquarium.

“I’m extremely excited,” he said. “We’ve been talking about this project for about 10 years and we’ve been on and off again, and it’s exciting now to see it finally come to fruition.”

Putney said multiple fish and invertebrates are bred in aquariums and in zoos across the country and many of the species on display at Sobela have come from other institutions, while some fish have been flown to the United States from Australia.

“We put out the call a long time ago that we’d be interested in bringing some of those animals here,” said Putney, who has been with the zoo for 16 years. “The sand tigers were at the Georgia Aquarium.”

Now four of the sleek sand tiger sharks have a home in Kansas City.

A green sea turtle, which is a species classified as endangered, was trucked in a van to Kansas City from Florida by zoo staff. Named Tortellini, the sea turtle was found floating near Spring Hill, Florida, in 2020.

“There are sea turtles that are hit by boats and get injuries on a yearly basis,” said Putney. “And at some point in time that happened to her and so her intestines aren’t making her food go through her system quick enough.

“They’re herbivores, they eat grasses and algae, and they get a lot of gas,” he added.

Tortellini has a buoyancy issue that the zoo staff is working to address.

“She can’t dive and stay down and so that’s the reason why she wouldn’t do well in the wild,” said Putney. “We’ll have a backpack that will have a weight on it that will help to make her neutrally buoyant so she can live like a real turtle and explore the entire exhibit,” he said.

Tortellini was deemed non-releasable by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“It’s nice that she’s able to live out the rest of her life and not have to be considered for euthanasia,” said Putney.

“I think each one of these tanks is unique and will be exciting to different people,” said Putney.

The aquarium houses 650,000 gallons of water in total divided between the 34 aquarium exhibits, with the largest exhibit using 350,000 gallons.

“We have anything from pipefish and seahorses to five different types of jellies (jellyfish),” he added. “We’ll have octopus, giant Pacific octopus, and we have more eels in a couple of different tanks.”

What sea creatures will be in new KC aquarium?

Sea creatures now calling Kansas City home include Banner, a 55-pound, six-foot-long green moray eel, who came to Kansas City from the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

Two sea otters, who were rescued as stranded pups and deemed non-releasable to the wild, were re-homed from the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, to Sobela Ocean Aquarium.

“They were abandoned by their mothers and couldn’t be returned to the wild,“ said Putney, who added the pair of otters arrived in Kansas City last week and will be ambassador animals. “They’re pretty expensive to feed, but they’re doing very well,” said Putney.

“We have an orange lobster, that apparently that color morph is one in 30 million,” said Putney.

The aquarium will be a permanent home for “Larry Lombardi,” the rare, orange lobster who was spotted at the Tops Market in Hamburg, New York. The market reached out to a local aquarium to find the lobster a permanent home, so now Larry calls Kansas City home.

“Everybody who’s come through so far, you know, we’ve had a few little sneak peeks, they’ve all enjoyed it,” said Putney, who has been in current position with the zoo for the past 19 months.

“I’m really proud of it and I know the staff is really proud of it,” he added. “I think it’s another jewel to the zoo and a feather in the cap of the entire city.”

In addition to the local visitors, Putney said the aquarium will a attract regional and national visitors and he said the zoo could potentially see an increase in visitors by about 200,00 to 300,00 people a year.

In addition to the aquarium, two hands-on touch pools will be available for sensory experience.

“Everybody wants to touch and what better way to get excited about the animals that they’re seeing is by touching them, “ said Putney. “So we’ll have a couple of different places for kids of all ages to explore.”

Two teams of zoo professionals have been assembled to provide care and maintenance of the aquariums and new species.

The aquarium care team will oversee nutrition and feeding, aquarium cleaning, and monitoring of water chemistry as well as behavioral observations.

According to the zoo’s aquarium team, the thickness of the acrylic aquarium windows varies depending on the size of the exhibit. The thinnest windows are less than an inch thick, while the windows on the largest exhibit is approximately 11 inches thick and weigh nearly 33,000 pounds.

A life support team ensures water quality meets industry standards to maintain a healthy aquatic environment. This team will maintain specialized equipment which includes a state-of-the-art water filtration system with more than five miles of pipes.

This system keeps the 650,000 gallons of water clean and the sea creatures healthy. In an aquatic environment, diseases and parasites can easily spread, so each of the 8,000 new aquatic residents will have undergone a quarantine period before they are released into specific habitat, says Putney.

The aquarium also plans to participate with other institutions in areas of conservation, including sea otters and endangered sea corals conservation. The zoo staff is also putting together an educational curriculum focusing on aquatics that will go out to schools in Jackson and Clay counties, part of the city’s zoological district.

“It’s not just about the animals,” Putney said. “The animals are embedded in the curriculum that includes math and science and and grammar. We’ve basically created this curriculum to be included in what they’re already learning about.”

About the Sobela Ocean Aquarium

In May, the zoo unveiled the name, Sobela Ocean Aquarium, which was chosen by donors Barnett and Shirley Helzberg.

The couple honored their grandchildren, Sawyer, Oliver, Benton, Elias, Leo, Amelia and Arthur, by creating an an acronym using the first initial from each grandchild’s name to create Sobela.

“They’re one of our biggest supporters and it was our way of giving back to them, letting them choose the name of the aquarium,” said Putney.

How to see KC Zoo’s new aquarium

Beginning on Sept. 1, opening day for the aquarium, the zoo will be requiring visitors to have a free timed reservation for entry to the aquarium. Reservations can be made online at Kansas City Zoo tickets and pricing beginning Wednesday, Aug. 16.

“So even though there’s not an added expense to come in to the aquarium, we want to make sure the experience is a good one and we don’t want to have real long lines,” said Putney.

Time ticketing will help with the flow of visitors through the building. Initially, reservations will be available for Sept. 1-15, then zoo staff will do assessments and make adjustments as necessary.

“Even though, I said my background is in aquatics, I consider this just the next huge step for the zoo,” said Putney. “We have lots of cool things to come, and I’m excited about that as well.”